This invention relates to air conditioning improvements.
An object of this invention is to assist in reducing energy required to effect air conditioning while obtaining high performance standards over the full operating range. Environment control by air conditioning means involves more than simply increase or decrease of the total capacity, but rather, dependent on the relative values of latent heat which are to be simultaneously offset in a manner that the lag in the process of mass transfer behind heat transfer does not contribute an energy penalty.
The problem to which this invention is directed is the problem of how to reduce energy required to effect acceptable refrigerant air conditioning for comfort purposes. The system presented here resolves the chaos arising from the contradictory effects of numerous variables in infinite combinations which are involved in refrigerated air conditioning design. Two of these unrelated variables, sensible and latent heat appear in both the room treated air and the outside air introduced for ventilation. Sensible cooling and dehumidification pass through unrelated processes. Heat transfer can occur with only a dry bulb temperature difference between the air and the cooling coil whereas mass transfer will not proceed at all without contact with a cooling surface which is below that of the dew point temperature of the moist air. To put it in terms of the partial pressure of the water vapour in the treated air, dehumidification from the treated air will not proceed until there is a partial pressure difference with the wetted interface of the cooling surface.